News and interesting stuff about the world of Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts

February 18, 2017

Charles Schulz's vacation: a crucial archival detail

From Monday, October 2, 1950, until the final strip appeared on Sunday, February 13, 2000 — ironically, the morning after he died — Charles Schulz gave the world a total of 17,897 strips: 15,391 daily strips, and 2,506 Sundays.

This takes into account leap years, the fact that Sunday strips did not begin until January 1952, and the single vacation that he took, from November 27 through December 31, 1997 (inclusive).Yes, it's true: Schulz took a vacation, no doubt to re-charge his batteries. During that time, the syndicate re-ran old strips ... a detail that Fantagraphics fails to mention in the 1997-98 volume of their Complete Peanuts series.A casual reader thus would conclude, incorrectly, that the strips during 1997's final five weeks were new at the time, just like all the others that year. Sharp-eyed fans will note, however, that each of these repeated strips bears a three-digit date (i.e. 12/25/97) as opposed to the two-digit dates (12/25) usually placed each day.And yes, anticipating the obvious question, we can tell you which reprints ran on which day:11/27 — 11/25/9211/28 — 11/26/9211/29 — 12/28/8811/30 — 11/27/8812/1 — 12/3/8712/2 — 12/8/8912/3 — 11/29/9012/4 — 12/1/9012/5 — 12/4/9012/6 — 12/5/9012/7 — 12/18/8812/8 — 12/6/9012/9 — 12/8/9012/10 — 12/10/9012/11 — 12/11/9012/12 — 12/12/9012/13 — 12/13/9012/14 — 12/3/8912/15 — 12/10/9112/16 — 12/8/9212/17 — 12/21/8912/18 — 12/22/8912/19 — 12/23/8912/20 — 12/29/8712/21 — 12/20/8712/22 — 12/13/8912/23 — 12/9/8912/24 — 12/24/8712/25 — 12/25/9112/26 — 12/13/8812/27 — 12/14/8812/28 — 12/2/9012/29 — 12/15/8812/30 — 12/17/8812/31 — 12/31/92We at FiveCentsPlease always try to go the extra mile!